Meeting of Sages
by RisingWinter
Summary: Arc wants to study in peace, but a couple of mages from another planet have different plans in mind. Bridge Between Crystallized Time and Burn Patterns.


The Saronian library was quiet at night. Most scholars and librarians retired earlier to allow for a meal before they slept, and it showed in the few candles lit about the bookshelves. The smell of must, tallow, and dryad leaves hung over the library like a mother's warm embrace.

Arc walked along the alley-like corridors formed by shelves, robes not quite brushing along the ground.

He ate before he came, and he wasn't going to worry about sleeping until he found what he came here for and fixed it. There was another land across the ocean and given Saronia's being frozen in time not so long ago, those records regarding the foreign realm were outdated.

He never found Toan's genie friend, but he expected that to take some time. Djinn were fickle creatures, never meant to settle or linger in one spot for long. Perhaps that was for the best – once he got started recording histories, he wondered if he would ever stop.

But the Cloud of Darkness, the emissary of the void and harbinger of hate would never die completely. He felt at his middle, where a scar remained from his adventure not four months before.

Crystal voices whispered in his mind, indistinct and rippling like a quiet brook. He learned to tune them out long ago as they would make it known if what they spoke of involved him.

He wandered into the geographical section of the library and selected any and all volumes that related to oceanic travel and cast mini on them. He put each in his satchel and continued along. One such referred to a "Scarlet Principle" they picked up from the other continent – Arc made a note to study that after.

Once satisfied with the collection he found, Arc took to a long table that sat between shelves and restored the books to their original sizes. They exploded into a pile of tomes before him and Arc took a deep breath before picking up the first one and setting it beside a scroll he'd brought along for a changelog.

The most efficient way to approach this, he surmised, was to make a list of all the changes to be made and hand it off to the mage guild for streamlining those changes. If they had even half a dozen working at it, they could graft in new and updated pages and have the entire database updated by the end of the week.

He didn't know how long he'd been working – he only made it through a book and a half – before a low rumble sounded and something crashed. He looked up but found only rows and rows of quiet shelves.

He stood and cast protect over his books – best not to lose his progress – and let the tingle of magic take to his fingers. If there was a threat hidden out there, he had an immobilize spell at the ready.

Arc could only hope fire wouldn't enter the equation. Just in case, he changed to the form of a Sage. A hat took form over his head and robes fell to drape about him.

Whispers sounded nearby and Arc followed them. Just in case, he put up shells as he moved, casting a faint shimmer over the surface of each shelf. A few more steps and he put a shell on himself as well.

Footsteps, unsteady and uneven. Like whoever came was badly hurt. Or didn't walk so much as skip along the ground.

With shells safely in place, he littered small arctic winds along the ground, hidden by the candle-wrought shadows. Ice was certainly the safest option here, assuming it didn't melt into the paper of the books.

Arc prepared another fresh immobilize and rounded the corner-

-To find a man with green-striped pants, blue tunic, and a long brown braid. And a girl with pink stripes, a pink tunic, and pink hair pulled in a ponytail. The man floated inches above the ground and the girl barely touched it with her toes. Both had deathly pale faces and red eyes.

Before Arc used his stop spell, the two blew past him in flight and Arc spun on his heel to face them.

An arctic wind activated and ice flashed into view. It encased the ground and crawled up the sides of the bookshelves to hold in ancient dictionaries and encyclopedias.

It didn't catch the two, though, and they kept flying. The histories on culture, tradition, and religion all iced over.

Arc took chase and cried, "Watch the bookshelves, please!"

 _Visitors_ , came the snakelike whispers of the crystals. _From another world. We do not know them._

Arc dashed through corridors of shelves – the two moved faster, but they didn't know the dark, labyrinthine library like he did. So long as they weren't crystalchosen, he could still beat them.

But then… who else could use such powerful magic?

He cut through studying areas and hopped over desks, all the while following the sounds of blasting wind and cold.

A flash of pink.

He threw another stop spell, but it disintegrated against the wall. Arc sprung for a zigzagging path between shelves and barreled down a long corridor.

A lightning spell flashed his way out of nowhere and Arc leapt to absorb it. His shell vibrated, he stung in some places, and the lightning evaporated. Better that than let it strike a shelf.

He ran on. The arctic winds stopped, replaced with confused shouts and the occasional crashing sound. No doubt caused by the low light.

Eventually, he cut them both off and released an area stop.

The man toppled right over. The girl barely remained standing, going by the tremor in her knees and the swaying of her head. Both wielded staves fashioned to match their outfits.

"You're not well." Arc approached with caution.

"We just zipped through half the galaxy in a minute." The girl looked at him with fluttering eyes. She put a fist to her mouth. "Ugh. If you could just… give us a moment."

Arc cast cure and dispelled the stop from the waist up.

Both shivered at the motion. The man groaned and hauled himself to his frozen feet and the girl straightened. Color returned to both.

The girl heaved a long breath. "Thanks."

The man looked at him. "You don't suck as much as I would expect for a kid."

He then blasted wind Arc's way only for the shell to absorb it. A single tome fell from its place and Arc scrambled to catch it before tossing another immobilization their way.

The man dispelled it with a flick of his wrist and floated in the air. The grace to his motion looked incredibly deliberate, and Arc felt a sting of familiarity – if Luneth was ten times more arrogant, then the two would be identical outside of looks.

The girl stepped forward, one hand in the air. The ground shimmered slightly as she moved and her stride strengthened. "I'm sorry about our meeting going like this. I'm Porom and this is Palom." She gestured between them. "We've come looking for information."

"What kind of information?" Arc regarded them warily, unable to dispel the gnawing doubt of a memory that was Xande. "What's your goal in coming to this world?"

They both drew up short. "Are you also a traveler?" Porom asked.

"Depends on the occasion." Arc gestured about them. "I wander between the continents of this world to share history and stories. If you've come with malicious intent, then-"

"No, no!" Porom waved her hands and placed herself between him and Palom, though she wobbled with the motion and Palom gave her a sour look for it. "We're here to help!"

"Kind of a dumb assumption," Palom muttered.

Arc looked around them. What did they expect, barging into the biggest library on the planet after hours? "Help with what?"

"There's something wrong with the universe." Palom swung his staff about with a bored expression and almost hit himself with it. This close, Arc noticed their eyes to be alarming shades of purple and pink, and Palom's hair was discolored in places with slate-blue. "And we're going to fix it."

Porom grimaced. "There are gods at war, is what's wrong. Divine beings at odds with each other and wreaking havoc across worlds. It's affecting our friends and we want all the information we can find about it."

"Like the Cloud of Darkness?"

Palom looked like he caught a whiff of something bad. "The what?"

"That couldn't be Zeromus, could it?" Porom looked to Palom. "He's dead, isn't he?"

"Gotta be something else."

"You two can cast." Arc narrowed his eyes at the two. "And you wear distinctive clothing. Are you crystalchosen?"

"Crystal-what?" Palom scoffed. "We can cast of our own volition! Didn't need to be chosen by some other power."

Arc held his tongue. Whispers in his mind confirmed their words, that no power radiated from them. It wasn't uncommon to use spells outside of the crystals' power, but not to the degree these two flaunted. "If you'll excuse me, then, I have to go excavate my books."

"Oh." Porom glided over and stumbled to his side. "Please, let us help. It's the least we can do to make up for our… well. Our entrance."

Arc cast her a hesitant glance. "If you know how to melt ice without hurting what's underneath, then please do. Some of these books date back hundreds of years."

"Pfft." Palom joined them. "Elements work through channeling magic, right? Ice is still an element. If you can summon it, you can dismiss it."

Arc blinked and changed out of Sage. "What?"

Porom took to the first encased shelf and with a gesture dissolved the ice into nothing. The shelf looked as dry as it did when Arc got here. "It's really quite simple." Porom repeated it on the next shelf. "Ready yourself to channel, only do it in reverse. Instead of calling forth ice, dispel it."

"I was just going to stop time and melt it, then move it to the floor before it has time to drop…"

Palom cleaned off a whole row in the blink of an eye. "Eh. That might work, but it would be slow and stupid."

Arc found an icy bookshelf and focused. His instincts wanted to generate more, but he imagined pulling it into himself.

The ice shattered. His heart stopped.

Porom appeared by his side and dismissed the shards. They vanished with a glimmer. "It'll take practice."

"So, what are you here for?" Arc tried again on the next shelf. Some of it disappeared this time, but mostly he repeated what happened before. "What specific information were you looking for? Myths and lore?"

"Those might help." Porom lingered near collected fables and poems. Sparkles shimmered about her, hinting at mana dehydration. "Religion, too. Geography, history… Gods tend to leave a mark on their worlds beyond the present."

The void. Could it be an aftereffect of something long past?

Arc shook his head to dismiss the sense of déjà vu he got when thinking about time. "Once we get the last of this ice, I'll show you exactly where to find that. Though you should probably sleep first…"


End file.
